The Knoxville Museum of Art (KMA) is delighted to announce that Assistant Curator Kelsie Conley has been awarded the Teiger Foundation’s highest curatorial recognition, supporting three years of exhibition development and presentation. This nationally renowned foundation offers awards for a variety of innovative curatorial endeavors, but only a handful that span three full years of activity. As such, it is a resounding accomplishment for Conley, and a profound vote of confidence in the Knoxville Museum of Art.
This prestigious grant will support Conley’s ambitious multi-year exhibition cycle which comes alive within the thematic framework of the KMA’s “Appalachian Imaginary” programmatic platform. In essence, Appalachian Imaginary builds upon the Museum’s celebrated Higher Ground exhibition to explore a region characterized by the comingling of, in Conley’s words, “myth, material, memory, and migration.” Through this lens, she will highlight artworks that re-imagine regional identity, engage broader cultural narratives, and create a speculative future for what Appalachia can mean. “We’re thrilled to partner with the Teiger Foundation in bringing Appalachian Imaginary to life,” said Steven Matijcio, Executive Director of KMA. “Kelsie Conley is a prodigious curatorial voice in both the region and the country, and this grant will provide a singular launchpad for her ideas and collaborations to be produced, recognized, and celebrated.”
Select Exhibition Timeline:
- November 2025 – The Body is a Drum, The Voice a Song, The Soul a Fire
Featuring works by Chattanooga, TN-based Tabitha Arnold, Lexington, KY-based Dianna Settles, and historical photographs by Lewis Hine, this exhibition will reveal the entwined histories of labor and community in the American South. Arnold’s tapestries trace labor movements; Settles’s paintings evoke collective organizing; Hine’s photography captures the industrial realities and inequities of early 20th-century East Tennessee. - August–November 2026 – No Man’s Land
This concept is inspired by visionary artist Harrison Mayes (born in Fork Ridge, TN) as he sought a path to the heavens by way of concrete markers placed in slivers of land between public and private ownership. In partnership with the Museum of Appalachia, No Man’s Land will convene surrealist work created in the borderlands between bodies, spiritual traditions, cultures, countries, and planets. - Winter 2026 and Beyond
- A future solo show will spotlight the performance-inspired work of Taiwanese-American artist Hai-Wen Lin. From a purposeful, yet delicately fluid place—across discipline, gender, and even materiality – this artist considers the make-up of both communities and the body in a transitional state.
- A future group show will mine the relic-like nature that materials collect in this region, surveying the seemingly historical craft practice of whittling and woodworking in modern and contemporary art.
- Further into 2027, Conley will oversee an overdue solo show by Knoxville-born Wardell Milan, who employs a multi-layered approach combining drawing, painting, and collage to imagine fragmented figures within rooms that fuse the surreal with personal and public space.
ABOUT KELSIE CONLEY
Since joining KMA as a preparator in August 2019, then moving to a Curatorial Assistant role in 2021, and advancing to Assistant Curator in 2025, Conley has championed experimental and evolving art practices rooted in the American South. She earned her BFA in Painting & Printmaking with a minor in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University. Conley is also co-founder and director of the artist-centered project space Bad Water, described as a “soul-project,” and has contributed writings to Burnaway.
ABOUT TEIGER FOUNDATION
Teiger Foundation advances innovative curatorial practice in contemporary art. Through its grantmaking initiatives, Teiger Foundation aims to catalyze positive change within the field through its support of curatorial projects that further new research, broaden opportunities for diversity and inclusion, and embrace more sustainable practices.
Established by collector and art patron David Teiger (1929–2014) in 2008, the Foundation honors the spirit of its late founder who acted as an advocate for contemporary curators pursuing ambitious, innovative, and unconventional projects. The Foundation moved into a new phase of activity following the posthumous sale of Teiger’s collection in 2018–19. Between 2020 and 2022, the Foundation distributed a total of $8 million, supporting artistic leadership and curators at nonprofit institutions; curator-led coalitions and initiatives that support and challenge the field of visual art; as well as COVID relief efforts that helped artists and cultural workers in need. 2023 brought the Foundation’s first Call for Proposals and climate action pilot, both of which have now become central programs of the Foundation’s grant-giving and support efforts.